World first baby born using the Geri incubator

In a world first, a baby girl has been born using the specially-designed imaging incubator, Geri, developed and commercialized by Genea and Planet Innovation.

Commercially available since May 2015, and now sold in 10 different countries, Geri combines an innovative, cost effective imaging system within each individually controlled patient incubator chamber.

NBN News reports that the first baby has now been born using this innovation. “She is the first baby in the world to be conceived using Geri, a special, Australian designed incubator that gives scientists a window into an embryo’s development,” reports Amanda Bennett, NBN News.

Prior to the launch of Geri, one of the challenges in the IVF industry was that assessing the embryos involved opening the incubator to remove each embryo, compromising the stable environment needed for optimum development for that embryo and others in the same chamber. “Previously, fertilized eggs were removed every few days for inspection, potentially reducing the chance of a successful pregnancy,” explains Amanda Bennett.

The launch of Geri in the market has addressed this need by minimizing disruptive events to early-stage embryos. During design, Genea and Planet Innovation spoke with IVF embryologists all over the world and identified that Geri needed to have individual chambers with individual cameras dedicated to each patient to ensure separation of each patient’s embryos.

“The embryos are continually dividing into cells and expanding and excluding cells and none of that was observable to us because the embryos were inside the incubators,” Genea explained. “Made up of 6 independent chambers Geri maintains an optimal environment during an embryo’s crucial first 5 days,” clarifies reporter Amanda Bennett. “A time-lapse camera featured to each compartment takes a photo every 5 minutes meaning embryos can be monitored without being disturbed.”

“Geri is just the beginning,” continues Amanda Bennett. “Development is already underway on an app that allows images to be streamed on a smart phone anywhere in the world giving potential parents a unique view on the IVF process.”

Eduardo is an Executive Director and co-founder of Planet Innovation. Eduardo has been directly responsible for the conception, development and commercialization of several new multi-million dollar technologies. He formerly held senior product & business development roles at Vision BioSystems & Genetic Technologies.

Pharmaceutical giant Merck Serono has signed an exclusive deal securing global marketing and commercialization rights to Genea Biomedx’s range of IVF products including Gavi and Geri, which were designed by Genea with development partner, Planet Innovation.